


How Far Down

by etoiledunord



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-22
Updated: 2007-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoiledunord/pseuds/etoiledunord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder comes home after the events of Cautionary Tales and finds himself before a kind of insanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Far Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for motsureru on Livejournal, who requested "a substantial drabble/ficlet on the nature of insanity. From Mohinder's POV." Spoilers up to and including "Cautionary Tales," plus the preview for the following episode.

Mohinder climbed the stairs to his apartment carefully. His whole head hurt—nose, neck, crown—and he was trying not to jostle himself too much as he lugged his suitcase with him. He dug into his pocket for his keys and unlocked his front door with an exhausted twist of his arm. Stumbling into his apartment, he was headed for three things: a shower, pain killers, and sleep.

Unfortunately, there was someone in his way.

"Welcome home, Dr. Suresh."

Mohinder was stricken. "Sylar," he breathed.

"I've been waiting for you," Sylar said. "Been on a trip?"

"I saw you get stabbed," Mohinder protested, disbelieving. "Hiro stabbed you."

Sylar grimaced. "He did. Luckily, I was rescued by a company of people who wanted to keep me alive. I was in a chemically-induced coma for four months." He smiled then. "But when I woke up, I was healthy enough to kill the woman watching over me and escape."

Mohinder swallowed. "Was she-" he started. "Did you-"

"That's an interesting story," Sylar interrupted.

~~~

When Mohinder had first come to America to deal with the aftermath of his father's death, he'd thought the people there were insane. There were some who not only believed in his father's research, but claimed to be a part of the evolutionary phenomenon in extreme ways. Peter Petrelli had been especially insistent, despite being unable to prove that he was capable of anything. Genetics was one thing—chromosomes and the formation of life were irrefutable realities of the natural world—but the implication that these things could allow people to fly with the power of their minds, rather than wings, was crazy to Mohinder.

It wasn't until later, when he'd returned to India, that he had seen the truth with his own subconscious eye and started to believe. His dreams had given him the answer: continue his father's research. Understand what was happening to humanity and learn to help. When he saw a toaster melted by a wave of a hand, Mohinder knew this wasn't insanity. This was empirical evidence that he could work to explain. Maybe the rest of the world would think he was as crazy as he once thought Peter was, but he now knew the truth.

~~~

"The woman who was in charge of watching me had an ability," Sylar exposited. "A very nice one, too. She could make you see anything she wanted. But when I killed her, I wasn't able to take it." Sylar's eyes narrowed on Mohinder. "Why is that, do you think?"

Mohinder's exhausted mind whirled. "I don't believe it," he whispered.

Sylar clenched his jaw briefly. "Speak up, doctor, I can't hear you," he said tersely.

The full implication of what Sylar was saying was breaking like a wave over Mohinder's mind. "You don't have any power."

"I know that!" Sylar snapped, coming closer. "I need you, Mohinder, to tell me why, so I can fix it!"

Mohinder looked Sylar in the eye. "No," he replied. "I think I'll just let you die."

Sylar closed the space between them in three quick strides and pushed Mohinder roughly against the wall next to the still-open door. His suitcase was knocked over. Pushing his forearm into Mohinder's neck, Sylar kicked the door closed and glared, breathing heavily, eyes livid.

"Let me die?" Sylar repeated Mohinder's words. "You think that I'll die from not having any powers, doctor? You think that I'm that weak?"

Mohinder gagged from the pressure of Sylar's arm, but managed to push him back with both palms against his chest. He coughed as Sylar stumbled, but the coughing easily turned into a bitter laugh.

"Your death has nothing to do with what I think of you, Sylar," he replied. "You're sick. With the virus that killed my sister."

~~~

Even when Mohinder hadn't been certain of who the man was, he was certain that Sylar was insane. A maniac running around and killing people. Killing his father in his own taxi. As he learned more, the root of Sylar's insanity became clear. Using the concept of an evolutionary imperative as justification for murder was twisted. It was a basic tenant of Darwinism that an individual could not evolve. Sylar had been born more evolved than most human beings, but he was deluding himself that the acquisition of new abilities furthered his evolution. He himself was not evolution—evolution is a process—and the megalomania innate in the belief that Sylar could evolve himself by destroying others was a clear indication of the lack of a proper concept of reality.

Despite Mohinder's own failure to kill Sylar, he had been satisfied that the man had received what he deserved. Mohinder liked to imagine that, as Sylar lay dying, he realized that all the powers he had collected had earned him nothing but karmic debt. That he could not be evolution if he died. The bitterness that realization must have caused Sylar gave Mohinder a kind of reassurance. You didn't come out on the good side of things by being crazy.

~~~

Sylar stilled, looking vaguely stunned. "Your sister?" he asked, voice slow. "That was decades ago. How did this happen?"

"There have been half a dozen cases in recent months," Mohinder replied. "It only affects people with abilities, and it makes them unable to use them." He was gloating, pleased at Sylar's predicament. "And then they die."

Sylar tensed at these words. Regaining his composure, he took a step toward Mohinder. "How do you know all of this, doctor?" he asked. "What have you been up to these past months?"

Mohinder took a defensive step backwards. "I've been working," he replied cryptically.

"Working on what?" Sylar taunted. "Finding more people with abilities? Protecting them from me, even though you thought I was dead?"

"I've been working to prevent someone like you from ever happening again," Mohinder replied angrily. "To make sure that, if somebody as mad as you ever surfaces again, they can be injected with a form of the virus that will stop their abilities for good."

Sylar gave a twisted smile. "So you let the others die, used them as your lab rats so that you could save people you thought were innocent, the way you thought your father was innocent?"

Mohinder couldn't deal with what he was hearing. His head felt like a solid mass of pain, guilt and rage. "No," he said carefully. "I cured those who were sick."

"Aw," Sylar teased. "How noble. And nobody had to die."

"Only the man who tried to stop me," replied Mohinder.

~~~

When Mohinder learned that Linderman had planned to blow up New York to unite humanity, it seemed obvious that the older man had gone insane with power. The belief that evil acts were justified by some promise of a greater good to come was abhorrent. It was also the premise on which he had built the company, so Mohinder agreed to work with Bennet to bring it all down. Things didn't go as smoothly as they'd hoped, though, and when it came down to who got hurt, Bennet's family or Mohinder's family, Mohinder felt betrayed that Bennet was so willing to let it be Mohinder's family. It was as if Bennet was hurting them himself, almost as it was he who had committed evil for the sake of protecting his daughter.

When Mohinder shot Bennet, it was doing evil for the sake of protecting not only Niki, but humanity. The mutated virus could do untold damage, and he was responsible for it, since he had failed to remain a cure. But as he stood over Bennet's body, as he sat in the van, the gun still in his hands, Mohinder knew he had slipped into insanity. Back at the company facility, he hooked Bennet up to an IV of Claire's blood and left before it might have done anything, not wanting to know either way.

~~~

Sylar looked impressed. "Well, then, maybe you're not so hopeless after all."

At that, Mohinder snapped, lunging forward and hitting Sylar across the jaw with his closed fist. It didn't faze the other man much, and as he straightened up, he laughed.

"A bit sensitive, Mohinder?"

"I hope you die in agony," Mohinder seethed.

Sylar arched an eyebrow. "Why not finish me off yourself, doctor? I have no power—you could shoot me very easily."

"You don't get to be that lucky."

"Why not?" Sylar asked. "Why not take your revenge on me? Forget the poetic justice of me dying from something that took my power away. You want me dead, and you've proven that you can kill someone." He paused, shifted. "You weren't responsible for those people who were sick. You just told yourself you were so that you could justify murder."

Mohinder's hand hurt now, too. "You don't know what you're talking about," he breathed.

"I may not know the specifics, but you don't look too well, Mohinder." Sylar smiled. "Feeling irredeemable?"

Mohinder gave a snort of mirthless laughter. "You would be the one to know irredeemable, wouldn't you, Sylar?"

Sylar approached Mohinder slowly and put a hand on his shoulder. "You have three choices," he said. "You can kill me, you can cure me, or you can let me kill you. You've already fallen; how far down do you want to go?"

"You're evil," Mohinder replied, shaking off Sylar's hand. "Evil and mad."

"How much hope do you want for yourself, Mohinder? How much does that hope let you do to me?"

"You've tried this before, Sylar," Mohinder said scornfully. "It didn't work then, either."

"So kill me. Good and evil are myths, and revenge is satisfying."

Mohinder thought of Bennet, lying on the ground, dead. Of him lying on a metal table, blood making its way into his arm.

"I won't kill you," Mohinder told Sylar.

"Should I kill you, then?" Sylar asked.

"No."

Belief in redemption— _this_ was insanity.


End file.
